Government Orders
Madam Chair, on what date will the budget be balanced?
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Madam Chair, would the minister like to check with officials and answer the question?
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Mr. Speaker, I hope you will give me just a couple of seconds to first thank the good voters of Calgary Rocky Ridge for returning me to this place where I could table this petition, as well as my campaign volunteers, my team and of course my family who I thank very much for supporting me. The petition I have today is signed by a number of Canadians who draw attention to a refugee crisis in North C…
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Madam Speaker, I believe it was February 2020 when I asked the member, who was then the parliamentary secretary for small business, about the absence of support for new businesses that had opened their doors either just before or just after the pandemic was declared. In her answer then, she teased the listeners by saying that this was a problem the government was aware of and that we should stay t…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is still playing catch-up with the rest of the world because of the government's hapless vaccine procurement. Small businesses still do not know if they are going to lose a second summer season, and the government has not produced a pathway to normalcy, especially for small businesses that depend on an open border for tourism. I do not know how many times we have had to ask, an…
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Mr. Speaker, now that Canada is finally starting to catch up to the rest of the developed world on immunization, provinces, territories and municipalities are beginning to reopen. However, Canada's borders are under federal jurisdiction and there is still no clear plan for a permanent safe reopening. Thousands of small businesses are dependent on tourism and they are being left behind by the feder…
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Madam Speaker, the government's lack of a plan for a safe, permanent reopening and late vaccine deliveries have taken a brutal toll on small businesses. Many still need access to the Canadian emergency business account to have a fighting chance for survival. A keystroke error should not mean weeks or months of delay or denial of access to the government’s most basic small business pandemic support…
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Madam Speaker, announcements and promises are not a correction mechanism. Small businesses are drowning in debt and need their customers back. The government's failure to procure vaccines and make prudent use of other tools has kept too many businesses closed for far too long and contributed to the recent brutal jobs numbers. Will the government finally table a plan for areas under its jurisdictio…
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Madam Speaker, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is modest and will not say it perhaps, so I will. He is truly a champion of freedom and Canadian ideals of rule of law, democracy and pluralism. It is curious that the Chinese government singled out a member of the opposition as worthy of sanction for opposing the regime's authoritarianism, rather than a member of the government. I wonder if th…
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Mr. Speaker, there have been constituents in my riding who have contacted me with concerns about the bill similar to some that have been mentioned by others in the House. I have typically responded to them to say that, if I thought this bill would control speech between parents and children, or teachers and students, I would certainly not support the bill. Has the member also had criticisms from w…
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Madam Chair, it is a good thing the opposition was there to get them to make the changes that were necessary to actually create a successful program. However, the minister still did not answer the question. Has the government fixed the problem under which a business cannot access the rent subsidy if they have their business separated into an operating and a holding company, which is required in an…
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Madam Chair, she could just answer the question, which was on whether there was an open bid process. This was announced as a new program, so this was not a continuation of an existing government program.
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Madam Chair, I certainly do not disagree, but that was not my question. I asked how it was chosen. Maybe specifically, was there an open bid process, or by what specific criteria was Mitacs chosen?
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Madam Chair, the estimates include $81.5 million for Mitacs to administer a small business internship program. That is included in these estimates. How was Mitacs chosen?
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Madam Chair, for a small business that does not meet the criteria of the wage subsidy or rent subsidy, is there anything that will allow these businesses to survive and pay their immediate bills?
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Madam Chair, can the minister say if there is anything for businesses that have been excluded from the relief program so far? That is what I would like to know, if the minister can answer that question, please.
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Madam Chair, I only need a yes or no to the question. Do the estimates contain any provision for relief for new small businesses, yes or no?
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Madam Chair, I will share my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, and I will use my portion of the time to ask a series of questions. Some new small businesses that were at the pre-revenue stage prior to the pandemic have been systematically excluded from the government's programs. This has been widely acknowledged, including by officials. Do these estimates fix that problem, which has been…
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Madam Chair, I understand that businesses that spent all of their savings building a plant, restaurant or a store, and had a grand opening date in March, still do not receive eligibility for the rent subsidy or the wage subsidy. Will they be eligible for the new hire subsidy?
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Madam Chair, that is still not an answer. Here is a new question. Typically a lender will require a business that owns property to have a separate company hold the land, particularly if there is a mortgage involved. The lender will insist on that. This creates a problem and makes it impossible for these businesses to qualify for the rent subsidy. Has that problem, which has been well identified, b…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Madam Speaker, the heritage minister has dismissed and insulted critics of Bill C-10 as “extremist” while peddling his own tin-hatted conspiracy theory about big tech being in cahoots with Canadian academics just to spread disinformation about his bill. Despite all the backlash and the minister's vague promises of future clarity amid his own incoherent and contradictory statements, the bill remain…
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Mr. Speaker, this is the most anti-small business government in Canadian history. Who could forget the draconian 2017 tax changes and the Prime Minister’s claim that small businesses are just a tax dodge for the wealthy. Small businesses are drowning in debt and facing uncertain futures while the government dithers its way through the pandemic with slow vaccine deliveries and failure to make use o…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, for over a year, Canadians have done their best to comply with Public Health measures to contain the spread of COVID, but the pandemic has left millions of Canadians worried about their economic security. Canadians need a government that is not ashamed of primary industries, like energy, fishing, forestry and farming. They need a government committed to manufacturing, tourism and the …
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to point out that in this place we typically accept apologies and retractions when offered by members.
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Madam Speaker, during the member for Yukon's intervention, he thanked the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her clarity around omnibus bills. I thought she was quite clear. I have more a comment, not a question. A large budget implementation act tabled by a Conservative government is bad, but a large budget implementation act that touches on different acts across the operation of government is g…
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Madam Speaker, this is the type of debate we need, where we discuss important issues before the House, and inflation and his concern about it should be duly noted. I am very pleased to hear the member raise inflation. At finance committee, for example, the testimony from officials and members of the government, members of his caucus, has largely not shared the urgency around getting a handle on en…
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With regard to the Western Economic Diversification’s Regional Relief and Recovery Fund, since the program was launched: (a) how many applications have been received; (b) how many applications have been approved; (c) what is the total dollar value of disbursements to approved applicants; (d) what is the average dollar value per approved applicant; (e) what is the average processing time for applic…
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With regard to sole-sourced COVID-19 spending between November 25, 2020, and March 18, 2021: (a) how many contracts have been sole-sourced; and (b) what are the details of each such sole-sourced contract, including the (i) date of award, (ii) description of the goods or services, including the volume, (iii) final amount, (iv) vendor, (v) country of the vendor?
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With regard to all pandemic relief programs and small businesses: (a) how many small businesses have opened since March 2020; (b) how many of the small businesses in (a) have successfully applied for any the pandemic relief program; (c) how many person hours of preparation and filing do the Canada Revenue Agency’s new multiple T4 reporting periods require of small businesses; (d) how much has it c…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the government has a tendency to measure its success in any matter of public policy by how much money it spends on it. Of course it is not a matter of what is spent; it is a matter of what results are achieved. In the last Parliament, the Auditor General remarked that the government's expenditures in the area of combatting tax evasion really did not bring in anywhere near the amount o…
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Mr. Speaker, there was nothing in that answer that will help Greg's business. I raised this issue in question period in February and the parliamentary secretary for small business said they were working on it. I raised the issue at finance in March, and the Deputy Prime Minister admitted they have failed businesses like Greg's. There has been a Speech from the Throne, a fall economic statement and…
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Mr. Speaker, Greg runs an auto service business in Calgary that opened in late 2019, just before COVID, and does not qualify for assistance. The government's continuing failure to deliver vaccines and rapid-result screening tests to safely reopen the economy means that more and more businesses are at risk of failing, and the ones that were brand new when the pandemic hit are among the worst affect…
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Mr. Speaker, it is incredibly disappointing that in 730 pages of the budget the Liberals could not discuss an industry that contributes so much to the Confederation. It is as if the government thinks that the primary industries and export industries that fund services in Canada are not important enough for substantial mention in a 730-page budget document. It is very disappointing to my constituen…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the chamber to take part in one of the most basic responsibilities of Parliament, which is to discuss the authority of the Crown's government to spend its citizens' money. It has been a long time, over two years. The last budget was seven months before the last election, which seems like a lifetime ago. It is easy to forget that in the third quarter of 2019…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know where to start with that. Has the member even looked at the chart that shows the deficit projections? The government will never balance a budget. There is no plan anywhere to come even close to it. The Liberals' plan, which is contained in this budget, hopes that they might get below 50% debt-to-GDP by the end of its projections. That is if nothing goes wrong between now…
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Mr. Speaker, the fact that the Government of Canada had to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline to get it built is a spectacular failure of policy on the part of the federal government. The federal government chased the private project builder, which was going to build the pipeline with private money, out of the country. I agree that this is a failure of the federal government. That pipeline should hav…
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With regard to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB): what are any statistics that the government has regarding demographics of CERB recipients prior to the pandemic, such as income level, employment situation (employed full-time, unemployed, student, retired, etc.), age, location information (geographic, urban vs. rural, etc.), or other similar type of statistics?
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Mr. Speaker, last week at finance committee, Philip Cross from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said that there was nothing in Bill C-14 for economic recovery. The government has repeatedly said that program like the HASCAP and the RRRF were the answer for businesses that had fallen through the cracks, but the criteria for these programs is virtually the same as the other programs that are failing …
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Mr. Speaker, small businesses have borne the brunt of the pandemic: 60,000 of them have failed; nearly 20,000 are on the brink; millions of jobs are at stake; many need more loans to survive; and thousands cannot qualify. However, debt is no substitute for customers, and small business debt is threatening recovery. Uncertainty from the government's lack of a plan is killing small business jobs. Wi…
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge thanked the previous questioner for the question and said he thought it was an important one, but he did not answer it. I will give him a second chance to say whether he regrets the unfortunate decision on Anbang?
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Madam Speaker, yesterday the CFIB told the finance committee that small businesses have accumulated, on average, $170,000 in COVID debt. This debt is typically not to governments or banks, but to creditors like landlords and suppliers and cannot be deferred. This is a crisis that threatens to wipe out tens of thousands of small businesses and two and a half million jobs. What is the government doi…
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Madam Speaker, here are the facts: Fifty per cent of small businesses are closed; only 26% have accessed rent support; 60% have reduced their staff; 60,000 have already closed permanently, and one in six is on the brink. The CFIB pleaded yesterday with the government to freeze or reverse tax increases, including the CPP hike, the alcohol escalator and the carbon tax hike. Will the government commi…
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Mr. Speaker, news reports say that small businesses have taken on $135 billion in COVID debt, which puts 2.5 million jobs at risk. Many small businesses cannot even access federal aid, but the ones that can will not be sustained on debt alone. They need a safe, open and employment-based economy. Will the federal government acknowledge that its failures are prolonging Canada's lockdowns and table a…
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Madam Speaker, for months opposition parties have questioned the government about small businesses that have fallen through the cracks of their support programs, especially new businesses, and the government has said, “Don't worry; these businesses can apply for funding under the regional relief and recovery fund.” However, that fund's criteria leave the same small businesses behind. How many loan…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, we have all heard from struggling small businesses in our ridings. Small business owners do not have pensions. They do not have employer health and dental insurance, vacation pay, sick leave, maternity leave, a minimum wage or overtime payments. Owning a business is a tough life, yet thousands of Canadians with a dream and an entrepreneurial spirit do it anyway, and they provide the g…
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Madam Speaker, I heard the member talk about the systemic nature of what is going on in China and all the different criteria. Could the member comment further on the necessity for the government to respond specifically to the question of genocide and to answer to all the points that he made in his speech and that the motion addresses?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to let the member comment further on his amendment. There is a long and shameful history of despots and dictators using the Olympic Games as propaganda to the rest of the world and as a domestic policy distraction to oppressed peoples. He mentioned the 1936 Olympics, the Olympics of shame. Sadly, that is not the only time a despotic regime used the Olympics for this pur…
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Mr. Speaker, would the member like to add anything about the shameful way that despotic regimes use the Olympics as propaganda to the rest of the world?
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, the member rightly raises the conflict between being available to one's constituents and being engaged in being a legislator in Ottawa, but the criticism around the COVID committee in that period was about the denial of so many of the available tools, not just to opposition MPs but to all MPs. Constituents want members to have the tools available to them to hold the government to acco…
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great comment. This is the chief reason why I am so opposed to the permanence of virtual voting. That unstructured time allows colleagues to interact in the chamber, or in the lobbies, or across the aisle, or to catch another member on the way out from a vote. Voting in the chamber in person compels members to be in close proximity to each other. There is so much pressure to…
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